


Tasting Victory

by hatebeat



Series: Putting the gears in motion [30]
Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 07:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2723633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatebeat/pseuds/hatebeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Connecticut, 1988.</i> Is it biology, or mere curiosity?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tasting Victory

_Connecticut - May, 1988._

Nathan was sitting on the swing, but even in the hanging contraption, he remained perfectly immobile. They may have been on a playground, but it wasn't like he was here to have fun. He had a job to do. Angie leaned against the steps of the slide, smoking her third cigarette in the past half hour. He knew the smoke was going to stick to his clothes and make his parents ask questions, but they were going to ask questions anyway. He'd been sneaking out for the past three nights to keep watch from this park. Today, he hadn't come home after school at all.

"They ain't gonna come through, I been tellin' 'em that," Angie grumbled at one point, but Nathan remained still and silent, which annoyed her, too. "You ever got shit to say, River? We been out here days and you hardly said shit."

The night was starting to get cooler and Nathan shivered, but barely noticed. Biter was in only a tank top and she was fine. But Nathan always felt somehow that she was tougher than him, anyway.

He heard the voices before he could figure out where they were coming from and dipped forward to grab a wooden bat from where it lay in the dirt indent beneath the swing. He gave Biter a glance, but she'd already dropped her cigarette and had her crowbar tight in hand. She turned to keep watch behind them. The sound of voices was getting closer, and even from their speech, Nathan had a feeling that these people were the ones they were looking for.

Someone else had been selling in this neighbourhood, and that wasn't going to fly. This had been their turf for the past four years, to hear Jay tell it. Nathan hadn't been around that long, but it made no difference. He knew it was theirs _now_ and that was all that mattered. 

"There," Nathan said in a low voice and Biter lurched back to see what he was seeing. Three teenagers passed under the flickering floodlight at the corner of the tennis courts, all older than the two of them, but that didn't scare him. Nathan knew right away that they were off guard, didn't expect an attack. They were bubbling with boisterous laughter, and even from this distance it sounded malicious, as if it was at someone else's expense. 

"It's them," Biter whispered unnecessarily. Nathan knew. Under the light he could see the baseball caps on two of them with their letters, and the other was wearing bright shoes of the same colours. It wasn't as if they were hiding. 

Neither of them moved until the three passed, letting them go on until their voices just started to die out of earshot. But then Nathan gave Biter a glance, and she returned it with a nod, and the two of them rose synchronised from their post. It was easy to stay quiet behind them with all the noise they were making. He spotted the butt of a handgun visible under one of the boy's shirts when they edged nearer. 

There was a point when one of them cracked a joke so vile that another one of them doubled over laughing, spinning back to get an eyeful of Nathan and Biter, and by then they were too close to hide. It was in that moment that three of them knew that it was on, that something was about to go down. It wasn't as if he and Biter weren't flying their own colours, after all.

Nathan went straight for the guy with the visible gun even as he was turning to see what his friend had spotted. He didn't get to see much, because Nathan's bat collided with his head with an all-too-famliar _smack_ that he felt in his palms more than heard with his ears. The armed guy collapsed in a heap on the concrete and Nathan had to ignore the blood that had started to pool because while Biter was busy with the laughing one who had seen them first, the third grabbed the end of Nathan's bat, trying to use his size advantage to force it against him. The guy was screaming something at him, something about _fucking with them_ and _how dare he_ and whatever, but Nathan found it easy to tune out words when he was fighting. But maybe he should have stayed more alert, because the guy got his hands on him and Nathan had no choice but to release his grip of the bat. 

Even as he struggled to get his fingers around the switchblade in his pocket, Biter's crowbar latched around the guy's neck, yanking him back so that his face met hers. He was distracted from retaliating against Nathan for a moment, but not quite distracted enough to let go of him. It didn't matter, though; Nathan flipped the switchblade open just as Biter's teeth sunk into the boy's shoulder. Something came out of that boy's throat like a mangled scream as Biter brutalised the flesh, as Nathan's fist buried his blade just under the guy's ribcage. 

He let go of the bat and he fell to the ground between them, and Biter spat the chunk of garbled skin onto his face. 

Both of them were breathing heavily, blood from that guy's shoulder on both of their faces. Nathan had blood down the front of his shirt as well, and Biter's arm had a fair gouge in it. But they were fine and they had won and that was what mattered. A beat later, Biter was on her knees, rifling through pockets for loot. Besides the gun, they yielded both drugs and cash. Not as much as they were hoping for, though.

The one he had stabbed, he was dead for sure. The other two might come to, but not that one. Nathan pried his mouth open and stuck inside a fifty cent piece so that his body could leave a message: this was their territory and they meant to defend it.

"Let's get the hell outta here," Biter said, and knowing she was right, Nathan stood without a word. He pulled off his stained shirt and with it, wiped warm, sticky blood from his face. Then he offered it to her.

"What?" 

"Your arm," he grunted, staring straight at the path in front of him.

"Thanks, River," she chuckled, starting to wrap the shirt around her arm. "I'm a'right, though."

Nathan said nothing in response for a time. His upper arm was throbbing, he realised as he walked, but he wasn't sure what had gotten him. It had all happened in an instant, but he was pretty sure that he was fine as well.

They were only a block or so away from the hideout when he chanced another look at her. 

"What's it taste like?" he asked, unable to squash the curiosity back down inside him. Every time Biter bit someone like she did, he couldn't help it. Part of him almost wanted to try it.

"What?" she asked stupidly, but he just stared at her, at the red that still stained her lips and chin. "Oh," she shrugged, then halfheartedly wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. "Eh, jus' tastes like blood, River. An' I guess... a little bit like winning." 

Biter flashed a grin at him, showing off those same teeth with which she opened up that guy and a dozen others, the teeth that had given her a name, and Nathan forced himself to once again swallow his curiosity.


End file.
